Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro or­dered the clo­sure of his coun­try’s em­bassy and con­sulates in Ecuador on Tues­day in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mex­i­co in its protest over a raid by Ecuado­ri­an au­thor­i­ties on the Mex­i­can em­bassy in Quito.

Venezuela al­so “ful­ly sup­ports” Mex­i­co’s re­quest to have the Unit­ed Na­tions sus­pend Ecuador from the world body, Maduro said dur­ing a vir­tu­al meet­ing of the lead­ers of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States.

Ecuado­ri­an Pres­i­dent Daniel Noboa or­dered au­thor­i­ties to raid the Mex­i­can diplo­mat­ic out­post on April 5 to ar­rest the coun­try’s for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Jorge Glas, a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal and fugi­tive who was holed up at the em­bassy since De­cem­ber. Mex­i­co grant­ed him asy­lum hours be­fore the raid.

The ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly un­usu­al use of force drew im­me­di­ate con­dem­na­tion from gov­ern­ments around the world be­cause diplo­mat­ic premis­es are con­sid­ered for­eign soil and “in­vi­o­lable” un­der the Vi­en­na treaties.

Noboa has said he au­tho­rized the raid “to pro­tect na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.” He ar­gued that Glas was want­ed for his crim­i­nal con­vic­tions for cor­rup­tion and not po­lit­i­cal rea­sons, and ac­cused Mex­i­co of vi­o­lat­ing the Vi­en­na treaties by grant­i­ng asy­lum to some­one con­vict­ed of “very se­ri­ous crimes.”

Mex­i­co im­me­di­ate­ly ex­pressed its out­rage over the raid, sev­ered diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Ecuador and re­called its diplo­mat­ic mis­sion.

Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent An­drés Manuel López Obrador said Tues­day be­fore the meet­ing of the re­gion­al body that Mex­i­co wants Ecuador’s tem­po­rary ex­pul­sion from the Unit­ed Na­tions un­til it apol­o­gizes and ad­mits that it vi­o­lat­ed Mex­i­co’s sov­er­eign­ty in the em­bassy raid.

“It was a very se­ri­ous af­fair,” López Obrador said.

Mex­i­co had hoped to use the CELAC meet­ing to ral­ly a uni­fied front to ad­vance its case both at the U.N. and be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice.

Maduro said he has or­dered all diplo­mat­ic per­son­nel back to Venezuela “un­til in­ter­na­tion­al law is ex­press­ly re­stored in Ecuador.”

“Venezuela ful­ly sup­ports Mex­i­co’s pro­pos­al to ex­pel Ecuador from the Unit­ed Na­tions or­ga­ni­za­tion un­til it apol­o­gizes to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and re­stores the sit­u­a­tion to its orig­i­nal le­gal sta­tus,” Maduro said.

Maduro said that Glas, who is now be­ing held at a max­i­mum-se­cu­ri­ty prison in the port city of Guayaquil, “must be re­turned to the Mex­i­can em­bassy and have his po­lit­i­cal asy­lum rec­og­nized.”

Noboa drew ad­di­tion­al crit­i­cism Tues­day for not ap­pear­ing at the vir­tu­al gath­er­ing of re­gion­al lead­ers. He post­ed an In­sta­gram video pro­mot­ing im­prove­ments to law en­force­ment in­fra­struc­ture and an­oth­er one an­nounc­ing an emer­gency de­c­la­ra­tion cov­er­ing the coun­try’s elec­tric­i­ty sec­tor amid hours-long pow­er out­ages in Quito.

“He should have shown up and as­sumed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for him­self in front of Ecuador, in front of Latin Amer­i­ca, in front of the Caribbean, in front of the world and he has not shown his face,” Maduro said. “I can say from Venezuela that he has gone in­to hid­ing and the peo­ple of Ecuador should know it.”

Mex­i­co’s em­bassy in Quito ap­peared al­ready closed Tues­day af­ter­noon. Mex­i­co’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment on Venezuela’s an­nounce­ment.

Un­der Maduro’s 11-year pres­i­den­cy, more than 7.7 mil­lion Venezue­lans have left their home coun­try, and most have set­tled else­where in Latin Amer­i­ca and in the Caribbean. Ecuador has the sixth-largest con­cen­tra­tion of Venezue­lan mi­grants.

Ecuado­ri­an of­fi­cials and non­govern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions that as­sist mi­grants es­ti­mate that 475,000 Venezue­lans live in Ecuador. Of those more than 231,000 live per­ma­nent­ly and legal­ly there, ac­cord­ing to Ecuador’s 2023 cen­sus.

BY REGI­NA GAR­CIA CANO

MEX­I­CO CITY (AP)